The rules covering live-in care-givers, farm labourers and othe low-skilled workers are discriminatory. They are denied protection under the Quebec Labor Code. They do not have maternity leave and they are not covered by health insurance and if they take maternity leave, they are no longer eligible to apply for permenent status. They are tied to a single employer, where abuses , such as being forced to work long hours take place. Farm workers, work under gruelling conditions, often up to 14 hours, there are long periods between meals and no water to drink while they are in the fields. They are forced to live in crowded dorms (up to 40 people to a bathroom and 20 people sharing a stove). It has also been documented that agencies that recruit domestics from the Philippines, force them to sign leases for apartment which they have to share with many others and sometimes arrive to find that the promised jobs do not exist. They are excluded from such proprams as legal aid, welfare, education and French-language classes for immigrants.
The Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission has agreed that the rurles for migrant workers are discriminatory. They found also that the Quebec Charter of Rights and Liberties, while it applies tyo everyone in the Quebec territory, that they are exceptions that treat migrants differently from other workers. The Commission wants all workers to be treated the same. They should also to benefit from other programs like legal aid, welfare and language training. They should be covered by provisions of the Labor Code for industrial accidents and occupational illnesses, from which they are pesently excluded. Migrant workers should be able to switch employers, without any penalty and they should not be forced to live in, and it further, calls on the province to open its doors to permanent immigrants in those job categories, which few native-born Quebecers are interested in filling. In this way they will be better protected and less exploited.
Quebec employs about 7,000 farm workers from Guatemala, Mexico and the Caribbean, and about 400 care-workers, mostly from the Philippines. There are jurisdictions where these workers are treated worse, where they are beaten and raped and kept in virtual imprisonment. We are a democratic system that prides ourselves as being strong supporters of human rights, human decency and human dignity. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard or else we are worse than those that we constantly point our fingers at, for violating these rights.
The measure of a society is how it treats the less fortunate.
The Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission has agreed that the rurles for migrant workers are discriminatory. They found also that the Quebec Charter of Rights and Liberties, while it applies tyo everyone in the Quebec territory, that they are exceptions that treat migrants differently from other workers. The Commission wants all workers to be treated the same. They should also to benefit from other programs like legal aid, welfare and language training. They should be covered by provisions of the Labor Code for industrial accidents and occupational illnesses, from which they are pesently excluded. Migrant workers should be able to switch employers, without any penalty and they should not be forced to live in, and it further, calls on the province to open its doors to permanent immigrants in those job categories, which few native-born Quebecers are interested in filling. In this way they will be better protected and less exploited.
Quebec employs about 7,000 farm workers from Guatemala, Mexico and the Caribbean, and about 400 care-workers, mostly from the Philippines. There are jurisdictions where these workers are treated worse, where they are beaten and raped and kept in virtual imprisonment. We are a democratic system that prides ourselves as being strong supporters of human rights, human decency and human dignity. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard or else we are worse than those that we constantly point our fingers at, for violating these rights.
The measure of a society is how it treats the less fortunate.
